


The Threat of Loss (and the Desperation that Follows)

by timerise



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Sad, has some blood stuff, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-20 00:43:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17612186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timerise/pseuds/timerise
Summary: bad summary whatever. the fic has correct capital lettersin an au- sirius+ others think lupin is the traitor. they have a fight about lupin’s lycanthropy the day before the full moon, and remus leaves to get some time alone, fully planning to return. but he’s captured, and by the time the truth comes out about peter, it’s too late. eventually, mr. lovegood helps him get free. he and sirius start talking again, but nothing like they had before. they haven’t really talked about what happened. this begins at the battle of the Harrys





	The Threat of Loss (and the Desperation that Follows)

It was not supposed to go like this.  
That was the only thing that Sirius could put together in the consuming panic he felt in the moment. Remus was in his arms, looking like he just might give up the ghost, and it seemed like Sirius couldn’t help at all.   
There wasn’t supposed to be a battle at all. They were just supposed to get Harry over to the Weasleys, but those damn Death Eaters…   
Remus had been bloody shot off his broom, and Sirius dove after him. He was certain for weeks, when he closed his eyes, he would only be able to see the limp body of his… well, whatever Remus was, falling.  
He had managed to catch Remus, but he hadn’t been shot by a regular spell. No, Sirius was certain it was Fletcher, because Remus had a gap in his chest the size of a golf ball.   
Sirius had held Remus on his broom, trying to focus on the task at hand. They just needed to get Harry safe, Sirius could take care of Lupin.   
After what seemed like a lifetime, they set down in the field. Everyone was doing their best to recover from their injuries, as well as get Harry inside. Sirius had picked Lupin up, heart seizing when he heard the man cry out in pain. 

Which brought them to the present moment. They were sitting in the field, Remus barely awake against his chest. The lanky man was sprawled out over the grass, long legs flung outwards.   
And Sirius was crying. He called for help, desperately. He needed to stop the bleeding, but he didn’t have a wand. Bloody hell, and how did Remus even get shot in the first place?  
Remus looked up at him weakly and touched his cheek. “Pads,” he croaked. “You’re crying.”  
Sirius met his eyes. “Moony, I’m gonna need you to h-“ Sirius hiccuped through sobs. “Help me keep you alive. They’ll probably come soon…”   
Remus smiled softly. “Your eyelashes look so dark right now. 'N… your hair looks like the sky.”  
Sirius shook his head. “Shh…” He reprimanded wetly. “You gotta save your energy.” Sirius realized, Remus could actually die. They’d had close calls before, but never like this. Never when help was a hard run away and Remus was just bleeding, bleeding.   
“Do you have your wand? I can send up a flair. No-“ Sirius said as Remus started to reach for it. “Just tell me where it is. You rest.”   
“M- pocket,” Remus mumbled. Sirius took off his jacket and laid Lupin’s head down as gently as he could. Then he remembered- he couldn’t send up a flair. That would show every Death Eater in the area exactly where they were. He cursed loudly and gripped the wand.   
“I- Remus we can’t call them. I don’t know what to do. You gotta- Hey!” He shouted, seeing Remus close his eyes. “Don’t you fucking dare. You’re here. Right now, with me.”  
Remus winced, trying to look at Sirius. “I’ll be alright.”  
“No, you fucking won’t!” Sirius felt like tearing out his hair. He couldn’t remember any healing spells. Maybe… He could stop the blood at least. He yanked off his shirt, skin instantly feeling frozen from the cold. He couldn’t think about that though, not when Remus was right here, fading before his very eyes. He tore his shirt, trying to get a usable scrap. He took the pieces and knelt by Remus.  
“Seems like a weird time to get fun,” His old lover spoke weakly. “I might bleed on you.”  
Sirius has to choke out a laugh. Or a sob. He’s not sure. “Good point.” He helped Remus out of his shirt, trying his best to be soft. He then wrapped the scraps around Remus, grimacing when Remus told him to pull it tighter. Looking over Remus’s chest, he caught the sight of strange new scars. It hurt to see.  
“Sirius-“ Remus coughed. Sirius blanched at the sight of blood coming up. “You have no fucking clue what you’re doing. It’s the pressure that-that’s gotta stop the blood, not the cloth.”   
Sirius pulled it tighter then, hands shaking as Remus’s tears fell. “That-that better.”  
Remus nodded weakly. “Yeah. That’ll do.”  
They sat in silence then. What was there to say?   
“I’m sorry,” Remus began.  
Sirius inhaled sharply. “Don’t-“  
“No. I need to say this.” Remus coughed again, blood dripping down his chin. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you needed. I-“  
“We were going to try again,” Sirius protested weakly. And they had promised that, that after the war they could start something new. Any higher power would know he loved Remus with every bone in his body.   
“We were. And I still want to, God Sirius, I want a life with you. But I…”  
“Don’t fucking start about that werewolf shit Remus! I told you, I don’t care! Well, I care, but I love you and I wan’t to help you! And we’ve never cared what the rest of the world says!”  
Remus just shook his head. “The “rest of the world” controls if we stay alive. Sirius, I couldn’t stand to see it wear you down before the war. You were so far away, it hurt me to see you like that, to know I was-“  
“Remus.” Sirius is shocked. He thought… he thought they had talked about this. He thought… it made sense now. Oh God, Remus. “It wasn’t- bloody hell, I’m so sorry. We thought you were the traitor. We all thought… It couldn’t be Peter… Remus we thought you were looking for a better life for yourself. And we were wrong, obviously we were wrong- Moony I’m so sorry-“  
“All this time?” Remus choked out. “It was because you thought that I? That i would ever-“  
“I know!” Sirius barked. “We all were so tense, we couldn’t think- Remus I meant to tell you, then you just… disappeared.”  
“Not by choice,” Remus mumbled. The blood seemed to stop pouring from his mouth. That was a good sign- wait, not by choice?  
Sirius asked as much. “What do you mean?”  
Remus looked at him softly. “Padfoot, will you hold me again? I’ll tell you, I just-“  
Sirius scrambled to get them into a comfortable position, leaning his back against a nearby tree. He would listen to Remus’s story, and try his hardest not to think about how this might be the last time he would ever hold his old lover like this.  
“You remember the night before? When we fought?” Remus asked. Sirius remarked on the bitter memory. His words had gotten ahead of him that night, he had told Remus that his lycanthropy was a liability or something. He thought Remus was the traitor then. It was the last time Sirius had seen him at all for years. When they found out, after Peter’s betrayal, that it wasn’t Remus, Sirius felt like his heart was giving out. Remus was just- gone.   
“I wanted to spend a full moon on my own, to blow off some steam and to give you some time. I didn’t want to be a liability! So I left-“  
“You were just gone.” Sirius remembered how that felt, realizing what he had said, chasing after Remus outside to see that he had just disappeared, his Apparatus dispersing into the air. “We thought you were going back to the Death Eaters.”  
Remus sighed shakily, tears falling once more. Sirius wiped them off with his thumb, recognizing numbly that he was probably still crying into Remus’s hair. “You were sort of right. I was in the forest, as a werwolf. Bellatrix- she must have been tracking me, I don’t know- she shot me with silver and knocked me out. She brought me back to the mansion, and…”  
Sirius’s blood ran cold. “What did they…”  
Remus swallowed thickly. “What you’d think. They wanted any piece of information I would give them, and got angry when I wouldn’t. I don’t- I don’t want to think about that,” he decided, voice quavering.  
“Then don’t.” They were silent once more. Sirius thought he could hear voices, not that far off. He still had some fight in him, he would protect Remus until he couldn’t anymore.  
“I didn’t want to be away as long as I was,” Remus finally said. Sirius sighed and pulled Remus closer.    
“You didn’t have a choice, Moony.”  
“I know- I just want you to know.”  
“I’m sorry.”  
“Stop saying that. I am too, that won’t change things now.”  
Sirius put a hand in Remus’s hair, running his fingers through the sandy locks. “It can.”  
“Do you still want…?”  
Sirius felt like he was breaking in half. “I- of fucking course I want to! Re, when you left. I… couldn’t. We knew you weren’t the traitor then, but you weren’t coming back. That’s when I knew I loved you, so goddamn much. It hurt like nothing I had felt before when I thought you’d betrayed us, and it was so much worse when I learned it really was my fault you were gone. I found those newspapers, you know? The ones you hid under the mattress?”  
Remus smiled, despite the thought being painful. “I wanted to stop you worrying.”  
Sirius shook his head. “I know. Oh, Moony, I know.”  
“Do you still have our flat?”  
“Yes. Mostly stay at Grimmauld, but I still technically own it.”  
“Maybe after the war…” Remus looked at Sirius with tired eyes. Both of them knew what he was thinking. If he survived the night, if they lived through the war…   
“I think that would be nice.”  
The voices were getting closer now. He swore he could hear…   
“Sirius?” He heard Molly shout.   
“I’m here!” He cried wetly, smiling as Remus turned to hear her voice. “We’re both here, Molly!"  
She found them then, accompanied by Bill and Kingsely. Molly gasped, running towards Remus. “What happened?”  
“I got shot,” Remus laughed weakly. “That bastard Fletcher got me in my chest.”  
Molly fretted over him before getting Bill and Kingsley to levitate him over to the house. Remus stretched his hand toward Sirius, who brushed his lips over Moony’s knuckles.  
“Padfoot…”  
“We’ll talk later,” he told Remus. Molly sent him a questioning gaze.   
“I love you.”  
Sirius felt his heart seize up then, a grin spreading across his face. “I love you too."


End file.
